The King and his Girl
by BeauMeris
Summary: Peter Pevensie hasn't been to Narnia in years. He's married now to a lawyer's daughter who doesn't believe in fairy tales or imagination. However, on a visit to the Professor's mansion with his son and daughter, all three of them are pulled back into the world he left behind to relearn the lessons that only Narnia can teach them.
1. Prologue

If you were to ask anyone, Grace Mariner Pevensie was the most beautiful and normal person you would ever meet. How Peter Pevensie landed a girl like that was a mystery in and of itself. Peter was good-enough looking, and they definitely made a handsome couple, but as for normal? Peter didn't exactly fit that particular criterium.

Even so, in March of 1955, Grace Marie Mariner took the name Pevensie and two years later, their daughter Helen Lucy Pevensie was born. Charles Edmund was born soon after and it seemed to the outside world for a long while that, perhaps, one of the Pevensies had turned out rather normal after all.

That is, until one Saturday afternoon when Grace returned from a luncheon to find her beautiful and perfectly normal children entranced by a story Peter was telling them.

Now, Arthur Mariner, Grace's own father, was a lawyer and, as such, tended to dislike anything having to do with fairytales and and other imaginative nonsense. "If it doesn't belong in a courtroom," he used to say, "it certainly doesn't belong in my house." So, while other girls were entranced by the stories of Agatha Christie or Jane Austen, giggling over boys and dresses, Grace normally had her nose stuck in a volume of Darwin or Gallileo.

Imagine her surprise, then, to hear her husband telling her small, perfectly-normal, and impressionable children a story filled with talking beavers and dancing trees with such conviction, it was almost as if he believed the story himself. Grace knew the story of the Pevensies' "trips to Narnia"—everyone did. But she had forbid him when Helen was born to ever tell their children about these stories he swore to be true.

"Peter," Grace asked quietly. Grace always spoke quietly, you see. "May I have a word?"

The children protested, wanting to hear something about a river rushing and a stone table, but with a sharp look from Grace, they were silenced and quickly ran out into the garden. Once they were out of earshot, Grace turned that same sharp look to Peter. "What exactly were you doing?"

Peter smiled a strange sort of smile at his perfectly normal wife. "I was telling Lucy and Ed about Narnia."

" _Charles and Helen_ do not need to know about made-up worlds from your childhood. Just because you and your siblings were deprived of a decent education and had to spend your time on useless imaginings does not mean I will let my children's heads be filled with nonsense!" Grace snapped.

Peter had never seen her this angry, with her cheeks flushed and eyes wide. His smile vanished. "They're children, Grace. They need to play and imagine—."

"No, they need to read Newton and learn maths and science. I will not let my children become a drain on society simply because you've let them believe in fairy dance and magic."

"Don't you think they're—."

"Impressionable? Yes, in fact, I do," Grace said, walking right up to Peter. "So, if you don't mind I would appreciate it if you kept your childhood magic worlds to yourself." She turned on her heel and walked away into the kitchen.

Peter sighed. Eight years before, when they'd married, Peter had gotten the crazy idea that he somehow might be able to make this beautiful girl who'd grown up thinking there was nothing to learn from her imagination see a world beyond. Even Susan, his ever-logical sister, had seen and believed in more than herself and her books after their trips to Narnia. He looked out the window into the garden. His children really did remind him of his younger siblings—so full of light, and hope. He hoped that someday they, too, would have a chance to know his Narnia.

Nine years passed.


	2. November, 1972

November, 1972

Helen Lucy Pevensie had failed another maths exam. She'd felt really good about this one, but the note from her professor glared at her from the top of the page. She and her brother were supposed to go on holiday with their father this weekend.

For the first time since she could remember, Peter was taking Helen and Charles to her Aunt Lucy's country estate. She couldn't even picture her Aunt Lucy, only knowing her from the photograph of the four siblings taken at her Aunt Susan's wedding and she was very excited to get to know her namesake better.

If Grace found out about her failed exam, there was no way she'd let her daughter go.

Helen already had a strained relationship with Grace. Since she was a child, Grace had forbidden her daughter to read novels, philosophy, or histories not focused on science. Even the fantastical stories her father had whispered to her and Charles when Grace was in the next room or away when she was young had been put to an abrupt stop at some point. Helen could only blame Grace for this. Even in school, Grace made sure to tell Helen's professors that she would only be reading what was absolutely necessary and that her daughter didn't need to participate in classes like art or music, as those were frivolous things for her to know.

Helen walked to the intermediate school where Charles attended classes and together they made their way to their townhouse on Gloucester Road. It was a nice enough day and Charles was terribly excited about their imminent holiday, but even her younger brother's effervescent attitude did nothing to cheer her up. She was sullen all the way to the Tube station, and then on the train.

"Is everything all right?" Charles asked, as they travelled under the streets of London. "You seem to have forgotten that we get to go on holiday all weekend!"

That _we_ may soon become a _you_ , she almost said, but held her tongue. She so hated to ruin his good moods, as, then, he tended to get sullen as well which meant tantrums. "I just stayed up too late studying maths last night," she lied. "I'll nap on the train."

The two arrived back home and walked in through the garden and the kitchen door. "Father?" she called out. "Mother?"

"Lucy!" she heard from the living room. When Grace was absent, her father insisted on calling her and her brother by their middle names, the ones he'd chosen, after his two siblings. "Ed! You two are back!" Peter rushed in, face flushed and hair very messy on top of his head, his glasses shoved up on his forehead. Grace must not have been home to chide at him. "Are you ready?"

Helen felt her heart leap. If Grace wasn't home, she didn't have to tell her about the test until they returned on Sunday evening. Meaning, she didn't have to risk having to stay home away from holiday. The children quickly dropped their book bags in the front closet and rushed upstairs to change out of their uniforms. Bags in hand, hats on heads, and smiles on faces, the three Pevensies walked out the door and to the train station.

Perhaps it was because they were going to see his younger sister whom he hadn't seen in many years or maybe because Grace wasn't accompanying them on this particular adventure to spoil everything, but Helen didn't think she'd ever seen her father this…giddy.

Once, one of her mother's friends had told her that during his and Grace's courtship, her father had been downright jovial. He'd worked in Parliament back then, which was how he'd met Dr. Mariner, and, later, Grace. Yet, when they were married, Peter left government to take a job as a professor of theology, much to his new wife's dismay, who, of course, placed religion on the same level as novels and non-wool socks in terms of usefulness; that is to say, not at all. There had been quite a row between them, the friend of Grace's had told Helen, and most of the neighbors thought they were going to separate, but they finally settled on the fact that even though Peter taught theology, there would be no place for such "useless fluff" in their home. Since then, the friend said, Peter had been rather subdued.

The three Pevensies loaded their train an took a compartment. Helen's father had an odd look of memory on his face as they sat down, Helen across from the boys. "Father?" she asked softly.

"We took a train the first time, too," he murmured, so soft Helen had to lean in to hear him.

"The first time?" Charles asked.

"This house is full of lots of memories for your aunts, uncle, and me. Lucy—well, actually, all of us, but she and Ed live there—inherited the house we're going to from an old professor we stayed with during the war. When he passed, we each received a letter from his lawyer, letting us know the professor had left us everything in the house."

"It certainly sounds…special," Helen commented. Some random old man had left her father and his siblings his entire estate? Just because they'd been forced on him by the invading troops?

"It is special, Lu," he said, smiling. He had an odd look of challenge on his face now as he looked at his daughter. "Do you remember the stories I used to tell you both? The ones about my siblings' and my adventures in—?"

"Numnia?" Charles replied, almost breathless.

Peter chuckled and put an arm around his son. "Narnia. Yes, do you remember those stories at all?"

The two children shook their heads. Helen pulled up images of talking beavers and dancing trees and flying lions, but, of course, that was just simply impossible. Peter's smile grew, as if reading his daughter's mind. "To the west, there is a lamppost that marks the far edge of Narnia. Just beyond the lamppost is the strange land of War Drobe and the small town of Spare Oom."

Helen cocked her head. Why was her father speaking gibberish? Peter laughed. "I guess I have a little more to tell you."

And, so, Peter told his children of his and his siblings' adventures in Narnia: sword fights with wolves, witches, lions rising from the dead, meeting Father Christmas, fighting wars… He was rewarded with wide eyes, equal parts awe and disbelief.

"Father," Helen began, "but that's all rather impossible."

"Precisely," Peter clarified with a smile.

"But, animals haven't got voice boxes to speak. And there is no way an entire world exists inside a wardrobe!" she insisted.

"You sound just like your Aunt Susan. Look, Lu…just because something doesn't make logical sense doesn't mean it's not real."

This stopped Helen. Charles piped up and asked about Father being the high king of Narnia while Helen settled deeper into her seat. She supposed it was truly a lovely sentiment, but, perhaps, there was just too much of Grace in her daughter. Seeing _was_ believing. These were just stories that he and his siblings had come up with when forced out of their homes during a traumatizing time in their lives.

Charles ended up falling asleep as it fell dark. Helen just watched her father as he stared out the window at the ever-darkening English countryside. He was so lost in thought, she was convinced she could yell his name and he wouldn't even flinch. She tried to imagine him as a boy, having just lost his father, promising his mother he'd take care of three children when he was still a child himself, growing up in a world torn apart by war and fear. Maybe that's why his stories were so important to him: they were an escape from the Atlantean weight he bore on his shoulders. Narnia was a place where he had the power to do real good, change the world, be the magnificent high king.

Around eight that evening the train stopped on a tiny wooden platform that could hardly be called a station. Helen, Peter, and a drowsy Charles disembarked, Helen looked around for car take them to Lucy's home. They waited in the pale light of the single lamppost for a few minutes before hearing a cacophony of creaking and clomping, and a cloud of dust arose at the end of the road.

A moment later, a horse and buddy stopped before the platform. On the bench sat a beautiful middle-aged woman with long, auburn hair—just like Helen's—woven into a huge plait and hung over one shoulder. She wore an emerald green sweater and dark slacks that seemed to shimmer in the lamp light. She looked like a queen, not her brother's baby sister.

"Aunt Lucy?" Charles asked, his voice soft with awe.

The woman beamed. "I figured this was the proper way to escort you to the Professor's Mansion."

Peter was just grinning. "Good to see you, Lu. Mrs. Macreedy would be so proud."

Even after not having seen his youngest sister in years, Peter regarded her with that same soft look of memory he had when they got on the train, almost like he were looking at a picture he used to be very fond of, only to lose and find again years later. There was none of the general discussion of how well either of them looked, though Helen was sure Lucy had never seen her father with a beard. It was new to even her. It was almost as if they'd seen each other like this…before.

The Pevensies loaded their bags into the cart and hopped on. Helen was unimpressed with the jerky, dirty means of travelling the buggy had. Charles however was completely entranced.

"What are the horses' names?" he asked first.

"The bay one is Phillip," Lucy said which made Peter smile, broadly. "And I call the other DLF."

"DLF?" Helen asked.

"Dear Little Friend," she and Peter replied in unison, sending them both into a fit of laughter.

Helen humphed into her seat. She didn't see what was so funny, or why her father insisted on making a spectacle of himself. How could a horse's name possibly be that funny? As excited as she had been to get out of London and, more importantly, away from Grace, so far this holiday was not going as she had hoped at all. Who knew her father could be so childish?

When they arrived at the manor, however, even she was breathless. It loomed before them, windows sparkling in the moonlight, turrets twisting the clouds. It's façade, strangely enough, though, was far from the foreboding menace that most of these old manors had. Instead, it had a sort of air of invitation—everything about the building radiated warmth and comfort.

Lucy helped the children with their bags and into the house before taking Phillip and DLF to the stables. Peter walked the children inside where, as soon as the door shut, a great booming voice cried out, "Ho, brother!"

Helen actually jumped and watched as her father was attacked by a bright red mass. It turned out to be her Uncle Edmund in a _very_ red sweater. He was younger than Peter and had a youthful energy, just like Charles'. The only hint of his age was a slight salt in his pepper-dark hair and the smile lines all around his eyes. He turned to her and Charles.

"My goodness," her uncle breathed as he met Helen's eyes. "It's Lucy."

Peter smiled that knowing smile. "I know."

Helen looked down as Charles struck up his usual, childish conversation. This was strange—these people, so different than Grace's father or her cousins, and this _place_ , nothing like their sensible, Central London townhouse. If she was honest, trying to wrap her mind around all the new and the fact that the best days of her father's life were spent here, with these people, made her head hurt.

"Lu," her father interjected, breaking her train of thought.

"Hm?"

"Supper?"

"Oh, actually, I'm pretty exhausted from the ride. Could I maybe just…?" She didn't want to seem rude, but she just needed to be alone for a while.

Her aunt smiled, having come in sometime while she was thinking. "I'll show you to your room."

Up seven staircases, around three corners, through an upstairs parlor, and into a small bedroom Lucy lead her niece. The room was small, but warm. The walls were painted with cherry trees that almost seemed to be dancing with their blossoms and each other. A washstand stood under the window, and a bed took up the other wall, looking right outside with a table beside it, novels stacked underneath. A great old armoire stood vigil.

If Helen had looked behind, she would have found an image that looked like two girls flying on the back of a lion.


	3. That Evening

_Hello everyone, BM here! And, I have a little Christmas Eve bit for you here. Yes, I left it on two cliffhangers and ti's very short so that you can have time to spend with your own families during this holiday season, regardless of what you celebrate. Thank you so much for all the feedback and reviews! I look forward to many more. Enjoy!_

 _Merry Christmas, and much love,_

 _BM_

Charles fell asleep on one of the couches after being stuffed full of Lucy's gingersnap cookies. Ed draped a blanket over him and dimmed the lights in the little room before the three siblings moved to another of the parlors. It took Peter a moment to realize they were in what used to be the Professor's study. All of his books still lined the walls, but Lucy's furniture now sat around and behind the old oak desk.

"I can almost smell his cigar smoke," Peter said with a little chuckle, only half joking. He remembered sitting here talking with the professor about Lucy being crazy, and him insisting that they had no idea what they were talking about. It had taken years of letters back and forth for the professor to finally tell the siblings his story, about his own trip to Narnia and building the wardrobe.

"Sometimes, I hear him talking in the halls," Lucy said, sitting down on a puff chair. "Or, I hear McCreedy screaming at him to stop reading." They all laughed. "It's strange that he's really gone."

"I wonder if Aslan knows," Edmund said.

"Of course he does," Peter insisted. "He and Aslan were close. I mean, our professor named the Beavers!"

"It's strange seeing them here," Lucy said suddenly. "Having children in the house, I mean."

"Why, because we were just like them?" Ed clarified.

"Well, yes, but… I don't know. They haven't…been there yet, you know?"

"To Narnia?" Peter asked. "Well of course not. I only told them most of the stories on the train. Grace…" He trailed off. His siblings already disapproved of his spouse; they always had. Even Susan had had a few choice words about her when he'd written to tell her of their engagement. "She wouldn't let them go."

"Let them? They could stay for their whole lives and she'd never even know. I mean, look at us. Everything we know about life, everything about who we are, we learned there," Lucy said. "Does Grace realize the man she married—the _magnificent_ man she married—wouldn't exist without that wardrobe?"

Peter smiled to himself. He remembered sitting and pouring over old maps and manuscripts with his advisors when Mr. Tumnus had come running in.

 _"Your majesty," he said, slightly breathless. "You need titles. I've only just heard. Epitaphs for the books."_

 _Peter had looked at him curiously. "You mean, The Brave Mr. Tumnus?" he teased._

 _"Well, yes, but King Peter the…The Bushy-haired or something!"_

"Gentle, Just, Valiant, Magnificent," Edmund said. "We were none of those things before then."

Peter looked out at the dark door, thinking of his young son, dreaming the night away. He had so much to learn about the world. But, he wasn't the only one.

"Lu? I have a preposition for you."

"I'm listening."

"Are you _that_ wardrobe?" Helen whispered. She knew it was very silly to be talking to a wardrobe, but how else was she to know if this was the magic mahogany wardrobe that her father had spend his childhood playing pretend in?

The wardrobe didn't say anything. It just loomed over her, standing vigil in the faint watery moonlight coming in through her window. _So, the magic wardrobe doesn't talk,_ she made a mental note. _Maybe if I just took a peek inside, I'd know._

Curiouser than she had ever been, she climbed out of bed and, thinking almost absently, slipped into her slippers. She crept across the floor to the door of the wardrobe and pulled it open. She was greeted with the scent of mothballs and old fur and…pine. She could feel a slight breeze.

 _It's just the wardrobe_ , she told herself. _The opening of the door. That's it_. She stepped inside, careful that the door was open for Helen knew it was very foolish to lock oneself inside of a wardrobe, and let her eyes adjust to the gloom for just a moment. Then.

"But that's… _impossible_ ," she breathed to the still air. For, at the back of the wardrobe, daylight was streaming in, regardless that behind Helen, in the world she'd left behind, the moon had just dipped behind a cloud.


	4. The Next Morning

_*Note: Hello all! Short chapter again, promise to get some more meat soon. This one is more of an experiment really. I had some positive feedback on the moments between Lucy, Peter, and Edmund in my last chapter, so I put in a bit about their adventures in Narnia, that seem to be missing from Lewis's account, in a flashback. Let me know what you think! Also, because my own big brother got a huge gold star this week for a start of the new semester present that brought me to happy tears, there's a lot of big-brotherly love in this chapter. Enjoy!_

The Next Morning

When Helen wasn't downstairs for breakfast by eight, Peter wandered through the house, up seven staircases, around three corners, through the upstairs parlor and to the closed door of a small spare room. He knocked on the door, for he knew it was very foolish to enter a teenage girl's room without first knocking.

"Lu? Uncle Ed made pancakes..." When there was no response to her favorite breakfast food, he gently pushed open the door in case she was still asleep.

Peter was surprised to find his daughter not snuggled into her duvet, as he had expected, but, rather, standing, wrapped in her bathrobe, staring at the back of a large, familiar wardrobe. It took him a minute to understand exactly what he was seeing.

"Lu?" he said again, and his daughter turned.

"Dad," she gasped. He was suddenly worried. Was she okay? She had to be. He rushed to her, wondering... No, that was impossible. She couldn't have been... "I had a dream about Narnia." Her eyes were as wide as saucers, and she looked almost comically terrified. His relief was palpable

"Yeah?" he asked. He sat down on her bed. She sat beside him, arms still crossed tightly over her chest, her lips pressed into a thin line and a little wrinkle between her eyebrows. He thought she looked a lot like Grace, though he'd never tell her. He did all he could to keep his own giddiness out of his features.

"I opened the wardrobe and there...on the back panel...Well, there wasn't a back panel at all. There was daylight."

"Did you go in?" he asked.

"Of course not! I was terrified! The next thing I knew, I woke up in bed."

"Are you sure it was a dream, Lu?"

"Of course it was a dream! There's no feasible way there could be a world inside a wardrobe, Dad!"

Peter sighed. He supposed his daughter really believed she only had dreamt of his beloved Narnia. If she had declined the invitation, the wardrobe might be rather cautious about its next appearance. He kissed her hair and shooed her away to the bathroom to freshen up and head downstairs. He stayed in the room, yellow light streaming through the window, flowered duvet on the floor, and the wardrobe looming over him. He looked at the walls his sister had painted, knowing they told stories of her favorite times in Narnia. All around the room he found little moments-an apple tree hanging over a ruined castle, a ship with a sun on its sails, a lamppost with a funny-looking man in a red scarf-while the main painting was of her beloved dancing cherry trees.

"Hello, old friend," he murmured, though he knew it was very silly to talk to a wardrobe. With the early morning sunlight coming in through the window, it felt like that beautiful day they'd been running from McCreedy and the four siblings all found themselves stuffed inside, then pushed into the white-washed world of Jadis's Narnia. He closed the wardrobe door and rested a palm against the wood panel on the front. He traced his fingers over the etchings of the birth of Narnia, lingering on one of Aslan.

"Pete," he heard from behind him. He whirled to find his sister, looking oddly domestic with her hair in a ponytail and an apron, watching him with a combination of bemusement and worry. "Ed is all finished. We're about to sit down."

He smiled.

 _A Long Time Ago:_

"Ed and Susan just got back!" Lucy cried, skidding into Peter's office, out of breath.

"From the Islands?" he asked, pulling off his glassed. He closed the very dry book on the weather patterns of Northern Narnia on his desk.

"Yes!" Even aged the few years she was, she looked like a child. He smiled and grabbed his cloak off the back of his chair, figuring the greeting at the docks would be somewhat a formal affair.

His baby sister didn't seem to care, as she raced barefoot through the palace halls, hair untamed, even strangled under a tiara. He knew the past few weeks had been tough on her, with Susan and Edmund on a diplomatic mission to the Lone Islands and he, himself, helping Narnians survey lands in the South. She'd been too much on her own.

"I'm going to ask the kitchen if we can have a real dinner, all together. We'll sit down at the table, all at the same time." The two of them arrived at the side palace doors which lead to the sea, where a carriage waited to carry them to the docks.

"If it's all the same to you, I think I'd rather walk," Lucy told the servant with a smile. They nodded and smiled back. Peter gave a nod of his own, acknowledging that he, too, would walk down.

The path down the cliff was smooth and well-maintained, as if someone had come through and made it safe for them, even with Lucy's bare feet.

"Remember the path behind the Professor's house?" Lucy volunteered suddenly.

"The one that lead to that tree with the hole in it?" he clarified. They'd found it on one of their outdoor excursions of the house's grounds.

"The same. The dirt was so soft, we could see animal tracks," she said. Peter cocked his head, confused about her train of thought. "The four of us used to spend hours out there with books and notepads to figure out what they were."

"I remember. Susan would quiz me on what the Latin names meant."

"We don't spend much time the four of us, anymore."

Peter stopped and reached for her hand. "Lu... I'm sorry."

"No, I just...when we were first coronated, we did everything together, closer than we'd ever been after all we'd gone through. And I know that was a very long time ago, but..."

He wrapped his arms around her, there on the path, and kissed her hair. "I have an idea," he said, taking a step back. "Why don't the four of us plan a little trip. We can go west a few weeks, before my next scouting trip. Just the four of us."

She beamed. "I'd like that very much. Just the four of us."

 _November, 1972:_

"It's nice having more than just Ed and me," she said as they made their way back to the kitchen. Helen said she'd be just a minute. "I adore him, but it gets lonely just the two of us in this big house. There was time we didn't see each other for days."

"You and your family meals, Lu. I never understood why they meant so much to you."

"I mean, in London, they were when we saw Dad and could ask him about work. Before the war, you know? And Mum always... I dunno, she always seemed so happy. It reminds me of them."

"I'm just sorry I can't show Charles that beautiful table that was in the dining room."

"Made whispering to the person next to you hard, though," she said with a smile. Peter laughed and wrapped an arm around his baby sister.


End file.
